A New Palette


That time is upon us. Cooler shorter days. Changing and dropping leaves.

The forest transforms. Texture changes. Trails melt into a bed of leaves and rocks.

So much change. Every season is a rediscovery of place. Every vista new.

Views brighten. A dense green palette turns red and orange and yellow...adding depth to an already brilliant landscape...

So many paths, which one to chose?

It's time for cross. Long, cool solo rides call; the forest calls.
It's fall. :)

serendipity in the sierras


Serendipitous experiences leave deep imprints.

A girl rediscovered traveling alone. She went anywhere and spoke to everyone. Free-spirited, laid back, following whatever path seemed most fun - even if its direction was foggy. I'd forgotten. She's alright.

Serendipitous experiences unfold traveling alone. Crunching through work in the park, so I could have a day in the high mountains. As it turned, a colleague on the fire crew had similar plans. I chose the company - unlike me as going it alone is my natural path. We clicked - it was awesome. I remembered what it could be like.

Experience it below via picture - although pictures don't quite do the sierras or the magic surrounding the trip, justice.

Images from the entire trip are posted here.

And so it began ... just outside the park at saddlebag lake.

we hiked in for a few hours -day one - as the sun was setting...

the terrain was spectacular.

here is mount conness. the plan was to scramble up to it's peak. too bad i don't know how to climb... soon.

climbing to some is like bikes to others... i get that. it's cool.


we setup camp amidst rocks to protect from chilling winds and cold; we sat in the dark, under a huge crystal clear sky watching the moon rise. We cooked, tracked constellations, joked about life... until our cores froze and chills set in. Then it was time to seek shelter.

We rose to a frosty sierra landscape...

my camelback froze as did my nalgene bottle. as the sun rose, the earth slowly warmed.

Water was filtered from this lake. A nalgene of hot chocolate started off the day right. We left camp and began our hike.

each plateau of rocks revealed another crystal clear lake...
all of which were frozen over early on.

As we made our way up the mountain, I found myself needing to stop and catch breath. Justin hung back each time to chat. Dang, and I thought I was in shape. I wasn't even carrying a pack (nice boy carried all the gear given my ineptness on rocks! how sweet.). Perhaps a combination of asthma and elevation took me out (it was well over 11,000' and we were hiking to 12,500'). The terrain was steep, rocky and sometimes lose tallus. We scrambled our way to the top. So fun!
right: look closely for the tiny spot that is our camp!

Justin really wanted to climb. I could see it in his eyes. While I told him to go ahead, he refused to leave me. :) we had lunch on the ridge, under a bright blue sky filled with puffy clouds overlooking the backcountry mountains.

Since we couldn't peak conness in this direction, we turned around and scrambled back towards the next peak over - equally high.

360 view. this panorama is HUGE - like 10 pictures long... you should see it full size.

Justin wanted to tackle the summit together - holding hands. we did.
there was a register there and we both signed it. i wrote "i found waldo". ha! poor guy - i can't help but tease. he didn't deserve it. he's adorable.

Some cool climbers summited on the other side. we all hung out. climbers are laid back but in this adventurous and sometimes wild / risk taking way... nice.
Justin decided we needed a group photo
left: our new friends took our picture.
Right: then we took our own picture.

Then came the descent. The lakes were SO INVITING in a "i know this will be ass cold kinda way"... we had to get in.

it was COLD!
Right: holy sh@@T !!!

I might get in trouble for posting this... but it's absolutely priceless. Our humor was strangely similar.

I was so stoked after the first lake, I wanted to get in again. Here I am contemplating another dive. The air temp was probably in the low 40's. I am the mother penguin.

repeat post... the high after is pretty sweet.

post swimming. me and my west coast boy... what an awesome time.
until we meet again. i hope.
I'm planning another backpacking trip soon... i think i'll fly solo - see what the trail brings...

rachel & leah's excellent adventure

I've brought home a bit of west coast laid back vibe. Somehow, the trip brought change; i like it. For example, being the planner that I am, I haven't planned anything much more than a day in advance and i've been taking each day as it comes... finding time to ride and catch up with friends as the day progresses. seeing who I run into and letting the day unfold. I showed up for a 130 mile ride on 3.5 hours sleep after being off for 2 weeks, with a few protein bars and some gatorade not thinking twice about the challenge of a long day.

sweet.

In the spirit of minimal planning, my dear friend rachel and I met up for lunch the other day and decided to head out to the forest for some cross action. we chose a ride that I knew would be a good 2.5 hours - maybe more given my broken down legs and rolled out not thinking about sunset and the fact the forest gets dark with a quick light switch flick. The first part of the ride was awesome. We saw a great blue heron at the lake and caught up given weeks since we've seen each other. Boy how I missed my friends.

We hit the bottom of gettis - a rocky double track section just as the light was starting to get dim.

Rach got a snack - "i think we're ok", she said.
"yea, we're cool - plenty of time". i was in no rush.
As we began to climb we quickly realized light was becoming scarce... we could barely see the rocks as we crested the first part of gettis; I was bouncing all over the place not knowing what i was riding but managing to stay upright. While in the past I may have found this disconcerting, I was now amused. Our little ride was turning into a mini after-work-excellent adventure! rad!

We made our way down wampler. I know the roads well and tried to recall where potholes and rocks were for Rach who's xray evening bat vision was a bit impaired. It got darker and darker (see picture below). As we climbed up the last hill - bear meadows - rachel's silhouette in front of me turned into a black blur of darkness. i called to her. I heard her voice so i knew she was there.

it was special.

It felt like we were riding on gravel so I was confident we were in fact on the road. good enough.

we made our way down bear meadows taking our time as by this point the sun was sound asleep and the road in front of us was soley illuminated by a glorious crescent moon (picture follows - camera phone, like us, struggles in the dark). we could barely make out the light gravel from the dark surrounding forest. there were moments where dense forest canopy yielded a completely pitch black path. we saw nothing, but kept rolling.

Rach busted out her infra-red high beam - in the form of a tiny LED light. I was blinded by its greatness. (see pict below) we stopped and got off the road when cars past - as fun as this adventure had become, we figured getting taken out by an f350 after all we'd gotten through wouldn't be so great.

slowly we made our way down bear meadows... through the fen, over the bridge, past north meadows... At this point rach was behind me trying to follow me given my super-xray bat vision that i developed in yosemite when....
"whack!"
woah... what happend" rach, are you ok?"
"i just got whacked by something flying across the road" she yelled.
say what??? yup, apparently rachel was bitch-slapped by a kamikaze bat (it refused to identify itself - rude!) on bear meadows road. Yup, you read that right. we're not totally sure what it was to be honest. it smacked her glasses into her face and got the heck outta dodge.

ahhh... the memories. We made our way back to the lot, thankful that we managed to remain upright and intact. both of us had notes on our cars when we got there. Apparently not only was our ride special - but so are we. awww shucks... Laughing hysterically, we said goodbye.

Hi rach! written in rocks. classy.

My friends are seemingly less classy - but that is precisely why they're my friends. Thanks guys - yes it was as good for us PLUS in the dark. nice.

A lesson learned - you really don't need lights to go on a night ride. You just need a couple of forest-ready bikes and two girls who care about nothing else than enjoying good company and time spent in the woods. certainly, another mini-epic adventure awaits...
good times.